The Killer Inside Sitting Bull

[Continental Op]

Sitting Bull always seemed so harmless fellow. A bit reserved intellectual type, a hippie that smokes too much... something in his pipe. Nothing sinister. But then I realized that it was all a facade, a mask of sanity to hide this... sickness he carries inside. He wants to kill, destroy and dominate the world... with nukes! That environmentalist thing - don't be fooled by it. Just a part of his act.

So, in my next game I will be playing as Sitting Bull with the aim in domination/conquest victory using nukes, and using lots of them. The early game I will be this harmless, nice old Sitting Bull that would give you his shirt if you asked for it but... oh yes... that mask of sanity is getting so heavy. Sooner or later it's bound to drop and the Apocalypse shall begin.

Basically I'm not asking anything specific, just some general tips of how more experienced players would execute this kind of strategy. Remember, I want to delay the warfare as much as I can, before all hell breaks loose. I will play it on noble, otherwise standard everything. Of course I will wage war earlier if it seems inevitable, but I will play nice in the start if I can. Do you think I should wipe out one civ still before the nuke war to get enough land? How many cities do I need? An what's the latest period to get them for me in your opinion? Much of this of course depends on the situation, but if you have any rough, general ideas, I'd be happy to hear them out.

 

[NihilZero]

Sittin' Bull is one of the most bad-tempered AIs, I find. He's such a moany grouch, always making absurd demands and then sulking when he doesn't get his way. I never did get along with the guy.

I do like playing him though. He's pretty suited to your plan as he is the defensive master par excellence. Just build totem poles (better still, stonehenge) and stock up on highly promoted protective archers and longbows, and nobody will dare attack you. Thing is, nukes ony do so much, you need a decent conventional army to back them up.

You will also want to make sure you control the UN to prevent any annoying person from outlawing the amusing thermonuclear phalluses before you get to have any fun. That would really put a downer on things. To guarantee control of the UN, you have to be either big or popular. Getting big shouldn't be a problem on Noble.

 

[kossin]

More like Sitting Duck...

Jokes aside, I hate being boxed in by him as he's a tough nut to crack (Totem Pole+Dogs).

OTOH, he gets backwards fast (too many troops), and is very peaceful - even more than Gandhi.

As for playing him, you don't have to worry about early copper which makes placement of the second city easier. Also Philosophical is always a great trait to have under your belt.

You should probably play as you usually do, bulb down the Lib line and either do a mass cottage/workshops for the mass nukes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've seen him dominate warmongers when he gets a better start (since they hate each other they will fight). His traits are good for a bulb renaissance/early industrial setup, and he has the means to stay alive until then. He also has a fairly impressive resource-less speed choke that comes with a convenient tech.

Cannons + drill muskets (and better) should be an excellent showing for him. Nukes are of course a good showing for anyone if you can get there.

 

[stuttrboy]

He's fairly good at early REXing because of his dogs, they kinda suck on offense though. The problem will be getting good land early though on Noble that shouldn't be too hard. Dogs and archers make great defenders, but aren't great for war so you need iron at least before taking on an opponent and many times you need Cats to back up an iron age war.

 

[Bruin.Bound]

My worst civ experience came when Sitting Bull was my late competitor. We both had taken large chunks of land, I thought my army of about 50 tanks would be strong enough for any late game war he would start as I was going for space. He declares on me, and I destroy his first stack which was tougher than I thought. He had quite a few gunships so the tanks were a waste, I had some mech inf. at the time that helped, but I lost quite a bit in the process. In then got into a late game slug fest, I soon had mobile sams/ artillery and eventually mobile artillery, but no air force. I couldn't go anywhere, his units were streaming into my lands endlessly, turns were taking 10 minutes each, it was a nightmare. Anytime I would build a fighter and put it as intercept, it would die instantly. I never bothered to understand airforce mechanics, but I'm assuming if someone has a huge edge, dont put any on intercept until you have at least a stack of 4... if thats even good enough. I never want to get into a war that late ever again after this. He also would not talk to me for a ridiculously long time, then when I finally got peace, building a spaceship was nearly impossible with his love of spies. I did everything I could for counterespionage and I was still lucky to send it off.

 

[Continental Op]

Thanks for all the suggestions, now it is time to find out just how far the Unabomber, Native American Psycho will get tonight!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

He's fairly good at early REXing because of his dogs, they kinda suck on offense though. The problem will be getting good land early though on Noble that shouldn't be too hard. Dogs and archers make great defenders, but aren't great for war so you need iron at least before taking on an opponent and many times you need Cats to back up an iron age war.

I don't recall anything being wrong with his horse units .

 

[Gwyddelig]

I've seen him dominate warmongers when he gets a better start (since they hate each other they will fight). His traits are good for a bulb renaissance/early industrial setup, and he has the means to stay alive until then. He also has a fairly impressive resource-less speed choke that comes with a convenient tech.

Cannons + drill muskets (and better) should be an excellent showing for him. Nukes are of course a good showing for anyone if you can get there.

Used nukes for the very first time in a game last night as Wang Kon. Shaka had been a low-level pest all game so dropping the Big A on him felt very good indeed. In the words of a countryman of mine, "A terrible beauty is born"....

 

[Continental Op]

Well, it's an interesting setting. The map generator was kind enough to give me insane amount of land. Most of it is barren desert, but who's complaining when there is enough land to AT LEAST 10-12 cities without taking them from anybody else. And it only gets better: at this point it seems that my chunk of land is separated from all the other civs by a long, narrow passage. Very easy to defend, unless they come from the sea, and what AI is smart enough to do that? Shaka and Genghis are in the game, but far away, so I don't feel threatened. So are Asoka and Cyrus, my only neigbor, I think. Others are still in the dark. I guess I could easily win this by space race without much trouble if I wanted to go down that route. But I don't.

Manitou, the Great Spirit, appeared to me one night in a deeply spiritual drug-and-alcohol-induced state of conciousness and told me that my destiny was to cleanse the world in a blaze. Then he showed me visions of vast, barren wastelands, and in those wastelands there were ruins of once great cities, now inhabited by cockroaches and freaky mutants feeding off each other. This, said the Great Spirit, is your destiny.

So, to fulfill this grand destiny I have devised a simple plan. After I've got steel via liberalism, I will make a visit to my good friend Cyrus's home escorted by cannons and drill muskets and take all his cities for myself. I'd say that's about 20+ cities, enough for my production base. Then I will tech me all the makings of a nuke-shopping frenzy. I figure 40 of those babies is reasonable, so I'll build 80. After that, the Apocalypse.

Well, that's the plan, anyways. Suggesting that nothing goes wrong. But the Great Spirit told me that everything would work like a charm.